CONVENTIONS OF A HORROR FILM GENRE

Horror films are created with the purpose of seeking a negative emotion from the audience, playing on the fears of the viewers; it often deals with the themes of unknowing and the terror which occurs with this. Plots often involve a force of evil, whether it be a person, event or place - these often have super natural origins such as ghosts, aliens, vampires, demons, vicious animals, zombies or murderers. It has undoubtably become one of the most popular genres recently. Horror films have an obvious macabre feel, often with supernatural themes. Horror films are also often overlapped with genres such as fantasy, supernatural and thriller. 

Introduction and history of horror films

• Horrors films go back to around 100 years ago; it is one of the oldest genre of film known to date. From the early days people recorded stories of ghosts and other shadowed shapes which were emotionally connected to the unknown and the fear of being in danger. Horror films reflected on such stories and therefore give the audience and opening into that scary world without actually being in danger themselves.
• The premise of the unknown and the lack of knowledge was incorpreated into monsters which were often used within German silent-era films throughout the 20's.
• As these monsters became more mainstream and widely known due to their success in movies, they had to be changed to become more origional and therefore maintain the same level of fear. Monsters then took the form of real people in relaistic and everyday settings which scared the audience even more.
• Nothing embodies this ideal more than Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' which was created in 1960. This was something which had never before been seen by an audience and therefore created shock and horror in its viewers. The idea was, however, a success, and is now one of the most famous horror films of all time.
• Another prominent film of the era was also 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' which was created in the middle 70's. It received a huge amount of notoriety for its on-screen exploits.
• In the 90's there was a lack in the release of films which were genuinely frightening so example, 'Night of the Living Dead' in 1991 and 'Scream' in 1996. Later in the century a horror/ sci-fi crossover started to have great success with films like 'Cube' in 1997.
• In the 2000's people started creating comedy crossovers. 'The Evil Dead' in 1981 was actually the first film to do this, however, after this very few films of this hybrid genre were created until recent times. It was then proven that the genre was not only successful but embraced by an audience. Regardless of what the evil is, be it zombies – ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (2004) and ‘Zombieland’ (2009), vampires – ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’ (2009), demons – ‘Jennifer’s Body’ (2009), aliens – ‘Slither’ (2006) or just horror tropes – ‘Tucker and Dale vs Evil’ (2010) horror/comedy crossovers never seem to disappoint.

Sub-genres

• Action horror - the element of horror combined with gunfights, elaborate chase scenes and other elements associated with films of action genre.
• Comedy horror - combined horror and comedy
• Gothic horror - gothic horror is a type of story which contains elements of goth and horror. At times it may also have some type of romantic understory which unfolds.
• Psychological horror – Relies on characters' fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music, emotional instability and at times, the supernatural and ghosts, to build tension and further the plot.
• Science fiction horror - a hybrid genre of horror and sci-fi which involves usually characters from other planets such as aliens
• Slasher film - Revolves around a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims. These films are normally extremely graphic and violent in subject matter. 
• Splatter film - these films deliberately focus on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. Through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, they tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the theatricality of its mutilation. Not all splatter films are slashers, and not all splatter films are horrors.
• Zombie film - based on the idea of zombies and apocalypse ideas

Codes and conventions

• The location of horror films are normally in an area which is mostly deserted, such as the woods, a ghost town or abandoned house of some kind. Often these settings, especially in more recent horror films, are place in realistic or real places in order to scare the audience and make the story believable.
• The characters are under some kind of threat, whether it be danger, death, a curse or worse. 
• A common thing which occurs in a horror movies is a power cut of some kind. All the lights are turned off which awakens both the characters and audience's fear of the unknowing. 
• Along with the previous convention - often phone lines are cut to show that the characters have no contact with any kind of help.
• Strange noises are also a convention of horror films; again the idea of the unknown is played on here.
• Often one of the strongest conventions is the characters running away or hiding - normally in ridiculous ways where the audience knows they will be discovered.
• The victim(s) are normally humans. Where as the villain is normally either a killer or a mystical being.
• If there is a vehicle in which they are attempting to escape in, it normally does not start.
• Someone is normally killed within the first five minuets, setting up the plot and sense of immediate danger.
• The weather is normally very reflective of the mood, horror films are normally accompanied with stormy or rainy weather which connotes something bad is going to happen. 
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CONVENTIONS OF A ROMANTIC COMEDY FILM GENRE

Romantic Comedies (Rom Coms) are sometimes classified as ‘Chick Flicks’. This is because a large part of their audience consists of a female audience. It is known as a hybrid genre which means it has many different conventions which are true of comedy movies and romantic movies, many are just taken from one genre but others are found in the middle ground of the two.

They are normally light hearted and humorous, focused around romantic ideals. The basic plot is normally centred around two characters, normally a man and a woman. They part ways because of some kind of obstacle, whether it be an argument or various others. The ultimately reunite and fall in love by the end of the film. Often the story is based around them being hesitant to becoming romantic because they do not believe the other likes them or one of them already has a partner. One of the biggest codes which appears within Rom Com films is that screenwriters and directors will make it obvious that the two characters are meant to be together. The audience will also want the two characters to get together because they also believe they are meant to be together.

Evolution and Sub Genres
Romantic comedies have begun to vary from the classic conventions and tradional structure to create new and interesting forms of the romantic comedy. This has created a varity of sub genres which all have their own set of conventions. They still follow the classic storyline and plot about a happy love story.

Extreme Circumstances - Some Romantic Comedies have adopted extreme or strange circumstances in which the main characters find themselves. An example of this is the Warm Bodies film where the main protagonist, a zombie, falls in love with a human girl. This type of extreme circumstance adds originality to the text and makes it stand out from the other romantic comedies.

Flipping Conventions - Other Romantic Comedies also flip the standard conventions of a Rom Com film. An example of this would be the film 500 Days of Summer where the two main characters do not in fact end up together as suggested in the typical romantic comedy conventions. 

Serious Elements - Other remakes of the romantic comedy genre include films which involved similar elements to classic rom com films but explore more adult theses such as marriage, responsibility and sometimes disability. An example of this would be Knocked Up which deals with the issues of responsibility when it comes to an unintended pregnant. And seriously discusses this throughout the film. Another example is the film Silver Linings Playbook which deals with the effects of mental illness and unrequited love which is never resolved. 

Here is an outline of some of the codes and conventions of a romantic comedy:

• A typical 'boy meets a girl' storyline scenario, these will be the two main protagonists of the movie (true of the romantic genre)
• Inevitability a happy ending, ending in a relationship or a wedding (romantic genre)
• Funny sexual innuendos (comedy genre)
• Most of the time the cenreal character is a female and we see the film from her point of view, this is because the target audience consists of females (true of the romantic genre)
• Normally set in an urban enviromentment, possibly centred around a work place, this makes it believable and helps the audience to identify with the characters (true of both romantic and comedy films)

What is a Trailer? Codes and Conventions/ History

What Makes an Effective Movie Trailer?

Making an effective trailer for a film can be considered as important as creating a good film. In some ways it is even tougher because you only have a very limited time, often of 2-3 minutes, to sell the product to the audience. A trailer is traditionally something which draws the audience in, gives the questions without answers and is also extremely eye catching. Every shot should be chosen with extreme precision and it all should be strung together deliberately.

The term trailer comes from the fact that these clips of future films used to be shown after the end (or trail) of a feature film screened within cinema. This concept did not last long as people often left after the film had ended and therefore missed the actual trailers, counteracting the point of showing them. They therefore were chosen to be place before the film, however the name remained unchanged. They are very popular on DVD’s or Blue Ray, shown before the film starts, however, often have the option to skip. Recently film trailers have been marketed through new media, specifically social media such as YouTube. Movie trailers are often shown before YouTube, however, if it is a theatre length trailer it often has the option to skip after a few seconds. 

Trailers are supposed to show the story of the film in a high condensed fashion to achieve maximum appeal from it audience. Since film making has become such a large and competitive market, trailers have become highly polished means of advertising. The first thing a successful trailer should do is make the audience want to know the rest of the story, this is often achieved through the use of leaving cliff hangers. A director will often explain parts of the narrative without giving away the film outcome so that they audience is left with speculations which they can only decide upon after watching the actual film. The layout of a trailer is not difference from the narrative of the actual film. It is split into thee parts; a beginning (where the story is laid out), a middle (developing the story more, often including lots of action and some of the best parts of the film) and finally the last part ( often including some kind of signature music, a last emotional montage of images of the cast which leaves the audience with questions in their mind).

Voice over narration is often a key convention of an effective movie trailer. However, these are used limatedly as an effective trailer should engage the audience through character dialog, 

Genre Research

Films are put into genres depending on common, repeating conventions. Each genre has a list of conventions which an audience would expect to see within a movie of this type; a film does not have to contain all of the conventions of each genre to be labeled but it must have at least a few of the obvious ones. Genres help to classify films for both a creator and a consumer, helping to target a specific niche audience.

Genres change over time, emerge and often become hybrids of two or more genres, for example, Rom Com films. The convections can be to do with: content, themes, mood, peiod, plot, setting, props (mise en scene) and recurring iconigraphy.

Some of the classic, primary film genres are as follows:

• Action
• Adventure
• Comedy
• Crime
• Drama
• Horror
• Musical
• Sceince Fiction (Sci-Fi)
• War
• Western

Our project is specific to film trailers, each genre also has a list of codes and conventions which should/ could appear within a film of a specific genre. Most film trailers are meant to give the audience some kind of insite into the following headings: setting, characters, genre, atmosphere and narrive. This will show an audience what type of film they are going to see and therefore they can deduce wether they would like to see the actual movie or not. This means that film trailers are crutial for the success of a movie as they help to target the specific audience.

A2 Grouping Planning

Who will I be working with?

I will be working with my partner from last year, Chelsea, because I feel like we worked well as a team. Last year in our coursework we got a high A, if we work well together as we did last year we should secure a high grade again which will benefit our overall grade.

What problems (if any) might this grouping cause?

The only issue I see coming around is that we both do photography, which is a very heavily coursework dependent course. This may mean that we are both short of time at points and therefore things we need to do as a group, such as filming, will have to be planned out in advance and worked around our other commitments to other lessons.

How will this be overcome?

As I have said, we will have to organised all of the things we need to complete in order to finalize the project. We will schedule filming dates and other various important parts of the project beforehand so they we do not make other commitments when we are supposed to be filming. We will also split the work up so that we are always able to complete work individually if they other person is not around at the time, this is something we lacked during our AS project and so will be working developing and improving this aspect of our work.

Reflecting back on my AS Coursework

What were the strengths of my AS Coursework?

• I believe my AS Coursework went very well. I believe I fulfilled the brief we were given in a creative and effective way. I was first of all very happy with my choice of grouping for the project, I worked with a girl called Chelsea who I had previously worked on my project with during GCSE. We are close friends and live fairly close to one another so meeting up to film and work on research and planning was easy and effective to complete. We will most probably be working on the A2 project together as we both how the other works, who can complete different parts of the project most effectively and also where out strengths and weaknesses lie. 
• I believe one of my biggest strengths lied within time management, I kept to a very tight schedule which ensured I complete all of my work within the designated time with time to check all of it and change any parts I was not happy with. This also ensured I completed all of the work to the best of my ability without rushing any of my work and leaving it incomplete. This also enabled us to go back and re-film any parts of the actual final video that we weren't happy with as we filmed it so early on within the year. This concept of time management is something I will definitely be using, if more specifically, within the A2 project. 
• Another thing which went really well was our thoroughness of research, we first looked at many sample blogs of other peoples work, using this we formed a list of all of the necessary research we had to complete to explore the topic fully. This ensured that my research covered all aspects of the brief and allowed me to create a huge understanding of the topic before I began forming ideas for my own opening sequence. 
• The final thing which I was really happy about was the final product itself. Although we could have found better quality equipment, I believe what we had we used to the best of our ability to create a fairly realistic and creative opening sequence. We also tried to use a most experimental genre, this was because many people chose the same genres and we wanted to give ourselves more of a challenge in order to explore the genre in more depth. We may be attempting to do this within our trailer in order to create something more creative and experimental. We also explore our creativity through creating out own soundtrack instead of getting one offline, this was something we thought went really well and may attempt to do it again through this project.

What could I have improved on?

• I believe I could have created more blog posts throughout all of the process, including production, pre-production and research and planning. This would have show more effectively the process of how we got to our final product, I feel as if I should have documented more of the process in order to get to our product to give the examiner more a feel about how I got to the final point. 
• Another thing I believe I could have improve on was making sure that we carried out more primary research, although we used a lot of primary examples we did use a higher amount of secondary research methods which could contain results which are not completely accurate. 
• We did have some time management issues throughout the project, especial when it came to filming or other group work related parts of the project as we both had other subjects to complete work for. This year we hope to be more planned out which will make the process overall smoother and ensure that we get everything done.

Three targets for my A2 coursework:

1. Make more blog posts documenting every decision we make - this will make our process from planning and research to the final trailer much smoother and help the examiner to see our process clearly.
2. Another target is to keep more to schedule, last year, towards the end of our project we were very rushed which meant we often missed out going into the depth we wanted to when explaining or analysing certain aspects of our final product.
3. The final target is to use more mediums to present my research in, last year we primarily stuck  to 3-4 different ways of presenting our work on our blog. This year I hope to discover new ways to present our findings in an interesting manor.